January 4 - House of Wax (2005)

 

            The remake boom of 2000s horror was largely the product of a single distribution company, the Michael-Bay-owned Platinum Dunes, which snatched up pretty much every major slasher franchise that wasn’t Halloween and released a string of gritty reboots from 2004-2010. Repetitive as it may have been, it made sense to adapt these films for the torture porn era of horror. Movies like Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Friday the 13^th had been controversial in their time for their violence and gore – why not bring these nasty properties back for a new generation of gorehounds? What was happening over at rival studio Dark Castle made a little less sense.

            Dark Castle actually predates Platinum Dunes by a few years, which destroys my original theory that Platinum Dunes bought up all the rights, leaving Dark Castle with the scraps. No, I think it’s more likely that Dark Castle made a severely inaccurate guess about the future of horror. The rise of torture porn in American horror cinema can be explained by a lot of theories, not least of them a reaction to the horror of 9/11 and the Iraq War. I also think it was a reaction against the largely bloodless, not terribly scary teen slashers that came in the wake of Scream. The horror movies of the ‘00s still courted a young audience, but offered them gross-out gore, over-the-top violence, a gritty pseudo-realist tone, and plenty of self-seriousness – none of Scream’s self-awareness and comedy here. But instead of hopping on the grimdark train, Dark Castle bet their money on a ‘50s Gothic revival and scored the rights to the films of William Castle.

            This is a bizarre decision, up there with Universal’s recent flopped attempt to have a Universal Monster Movie cinematic universe. One of the higherups must have been a big time William Castle fan. Castle isn’t a household name, nor is he a horror fan’s darling like Carpenter or Craven. Castle’s movies are campy, goofy, and gimmicky, featuring audience participation bits like a flying skeletons or buzzers in theater seats. As far as I can tell, Castle is best loved by old-school film buffs, certainly not the teen boys horror was about to aggressively court. And the grimdark, no-fun sincerity of the ‘00s horror just did not match the winking tone of Castle’s oeuvre. It is a baffling mish-mash.

            I haven’t seen either of Dark Castle’s William Castle remakes, House on Haunted Hill or Thi13een Ghosts, which are best known as hideous CGI disasters. They followed this up with two Gothic-inspired originals, Ghost Ship (which I own on VHS!), and the profitable but now forgotten Halle Berry vehicle Gothika. I don’t know much about Gothika, but I do know that Ghost Ship opens with a gory set piece that suggests that Dark Castle was finally getting with the times. For their fifth pick, they decided to go William Castle adjacent, remaking a ‘50s Vincent Price movie called House of Wax.

            Plot wise, 2005’s House of Wax is actually a remake of a high concept ‘70s slasher Tourist Trap, so much so that I’m surprised they didn’t get sued. I honestly don’t know why they bothered to license the original film’s title anyway; it’s not like Vincent Price or cheesy ‘50s horror movies were enjoying any kind of renewed attention. Tourist Trap, like House of Wax, features a group of youngsters discovering a town populated entirely with wax mannikins, who turn out to be human beings encased in wax, and before too long the kids are hunted down and made into wax themselves by a pair of brothers. (The twist about wax figures being real people sees, to be honest, less impressive than the realism of non-murdery wax sculptures, but who am I to judge). As befits its cheesy premise, Tourist Trap is a goofy film, featuring telekinetic powers and its maddened final girl driving off with her wax-coated friends in tow. House of Wax, as a ‘00s horror movie, tries to play its premise perfectly straight. This goes about as well as you’d expect.

            Like pretty much every Hollywood slasher of the decade, this film desperately wants to be The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. I can think of no other explanation. If they wanted to be Carpenter, they’d have synth scores. If they wanted to be Craven, they’d have colorful special effects and dream logic. If they wanted to be Raimi, they’d have jokes. Instead, House of Wax has animal carcasses, torture, faces peeled off, lips glued shut, fingers snipped off, impalings and decapitations galore, and of course scary rural folk with southern accents and disfigurements, a family of do-baders, and even a creepy gas station with villainous attendant. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that a remake of TCM kicked off the remake boom in 2003, since even House of Wax, which based on its claimed source material should be miles away from this chainsawy terrain, is so blatantly aping Tobe Hooper. And I get it. I think you can absolutely make the case that TCM is the scariest American horror movie of all time. But what makes it scary isn’t the gore (which is surprisingly scant) or even the violence; it is the apocalyptic terror that suffuses every frame and every sound in this movie from the opening scrawl, a sense of American rot, and an awareness of the fundamental, physical reality of death. House of Wax, I am afraid to say, does not do this.

            I have heard a few horror fans refer to this as a fun movie. I think that’s fair; it moves at a quick clip, is full of creatively gross imagery, and the final set piece as the House of Wax, itself made of wax, literally melts is deliciously ludicrous. But fun in the self-aware way of William Castle or Vincent Price? I just don’t see it. Unlike The Descent, also 2005, House of Wax already feels like a period piece, a case study of a very strange time in American horror, where someone thought the winning formula for a blockbuster slasher was a dumb premise in a grimdark, joyless casing smeared with un-bright blood. I’m honestly kind of obsessed with it, the same way I’m obsessed with My Chemical Romance and Twilight (except, sorry, this movie is exponentially worse than either). It’s the culture of my childhood, which I was steeping in whether or not I ever consumed it. I am glad we’ve left this era in horror behind and can look back and laugh, but I can’t say I wish it had never happened.

            I wish I could have convinced someone to watch this with me tbh, because this would have been a lot of fun to riff.  

 The Talent: The debut film of director Jaume Collet-Serra, best known to horror fans for The Orphan and the well-received The Shallows. Most of the cast are best known for television roles on the likes of 24, One Tree Hill, and Gilmore Girls. Oh and Supernatural’s Sam Winchester is in this. But of course, most infamously, Paris Hilton stars as the film’s Slut. She does a strip tease, and maybe gives a guy road head! Honestly, she’s fine. Anyone who’s seen one (1) ‘80s slasher knows that those movies make Hilton look like Meryl fucking Streep, so I vote leave her alone.

 Subgenre: Slasher end of list

 Story Type/Archetypes: Like Tourist Trap, House of Wax depends on the idea that there are unreachable and unknowable parts of the United States. Your quintessential travel horror film, our good-looking and generically accented younguns find themselves off the grid, away from the safety of civilization. Like Impetigore, it’s a journey to the past – the town itself is very retro. Your friendly reminder that in the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre, the kids are also from Texas, and that makes it scarier.

 Sense of Place: See above. Like yesterday’s film, this film was shot is Australia, and that’s the only thing these two movies have in common.

 Mood: This movie is designed to give the audience what they want, and the presumed audience is a collection of horny, gore-hungry teen boys. Hope they enjoyed it!

 Are there heroes?: There is a stack of victims, and if you like sorting your horror movie characters into the categories from Cabin in the Woods, you can do that no problem. Our final girl is fairly nondescript, but she wears a white tank top and is accompanied by a final brother, her no-good, law-breaking twin. It’s supposed to be a story about sibling togetherness, but mostly feels like an excuse to have the final girl do less cool shit.

Who are the monsters (and why are they scary)?: Sure, getting covered alive in wax might be scary, but you know what’s really scary. The disabled and the rural poor!

 This movie will freak you out of you’re creeped out by…: Mannequins, yucky gore, dudes who look like they’re in Slipknot.

 Is it a metaphor for something?: You wish. The movie tries to suggest a theme of polarity of good and evil siblings and maybe some nature versus nurture stuff. The final girl’s brother calls himself the evil twin, we have the two murderous brothers, and there’s even a brief appearance from Whatever Happened to Baby Jane. But this is not a very substantive theme.

 Is there a twist?: At the beginning of the movie, you find out that one of the twin brothers was a violent wackadoo even as a child, and it turns out that that’s not the brother with the facial disfigurement. Really makes ya think.

 What kind of ending is it?: Why, yet another resolved ending with a stinger. Turns out there’s a third brother, and he enjoys throwing roadkill into a pit.

 The girlfriend’s rating (i.e. how much would this upset my girlfriend?): R, for grievous displays of masculinity.

 But how gay is it?: The usual homoeroticism that accompanies such displays. As the old Vinegoes, two bros sitting in a hot tub / five feet apart cause they’re not gay!

 And did it fit the daily theme?: It was exactly what I expected from the 2005 slasher, so yeah.

 Watch this if you enjoy: Gore and gristle, general nastiness, a back-to-basics slasher, the 2000s.

 Musical Accompaniment: The soundtrack to this is disappointingly decent, featuring Joy Division and my beloved MCR mixed in with the usual mediocre ‘00s hardcore. But don’t worry, the baddies listen to Marilyn Manson.

 Girlfriend’s Corner: God, I’m glad I didn’t watch this. I know Sara has a real nostalgic soft spot for mid-2000s horror (in aesthetics if not in actual judging of its quality) but I sure don’t, and this sounds just painful. The Eighties already had a perfect run of Fifties B-movie remakes (culminating in Cronenberg’s The Fly) – why did anyone think going back to that well during one of the worst periods in horror would possibly be a good idea?